


Perspective

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 14:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3175758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine had been pulled apart and remade over the past few months, the same person he’d always been inside but looking out at the world through somehow different eyes, and he hadn’t expected that those eyes would still be quite as good at reading Kurt.</p><p>set during the scene in Scandals in 6x01 (“Loser Like Me”) with no spoilers beyond</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perspective

**Author's Note:**

> I shouldn’t have to make this disclaimer, but in case anyone feels like yelling at me: in this fic - as all of my POV characters are in everything I write - Blaine is an unreliable narrator. Please read between the lines. And obviously I love Kurt to pieces; Blaine’s perspective on the situation is not _my_ perspective.
> 
> Thanks to Liz for the beta and the support (and the sobbing at each other over text)!

From his seat beside Dave at the now-familiar bar at Scandals, Blaine could see the cracks forming beneath Kurt’s smiling surface as they talked, like hairline fractures spidering out across the too-thin ice of his eyes.

Blaine could see the tightness of Kurt’s expression, shock coloring the wavering curve of his mouth and making his gaze flicker like a hummingbird not quite sure where to land. He could see the effort it was taking for Kurt to keep his voice sounding normal in the face of such a blow.

Even if he hadn’t had Kurt’s overly confident little speech about winning him back to tell him how much the news of Blaine’s relationship was in direct conflict with what Kurt had walked in the door wanting - and expecting - from him, Blaine would have been able to track those cracks of pain like they were lit up with floodlights. They were so obvious to him, no matter how Kurt was trying to pretend they didn’t exist at all.

It was honestly something of a surprise to Blaine that he could see that strain. He leaned his side against the bar as that knowledge settled into his chest, an awareness of having retained something he’d thought he’d lost. He had been pulled apart and remade over the past few months, the same person he’d always been inside but looking out at the world through somehow different eyes, and he hadn’t expected that those eyes would still be quite as good at reading Kurt.

He’d thought when he’d put Kurt behind him he’d lost that connection with him, too.

After all, hadn’t he come to terms with the fact that he’d actually lost that ability long before Kurt had torn them apart for good? Otherwise, if Blaine had known Kurt so well, had known what he was actually feeling, wouldn’t he have been something less than completely flattened by the truth that Kurt didn’t want to spend his life with him after all?

Blaine watched Kurt’s eyes flash back and forth between them again, his smile polite but anything but real.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to use the restroom,” Kurt said, getting up, and Blaine watched him go.

Kurt had broken all of his promises as well as Blaine’s heart, but somehow despite it all Blaine still _knew_ him. He hadn’t expected Kurt to fall apart before his eyes at the news that he and Dave were dating - but then there was also no way he would have expected Kurt to blurt out that he wanted him back, either, not after all that they’d both done and said - but it was happening, and he could see it.

He could see Kurt fighting against it, holding his emotions close like he always did. He could see Kurt hiding behind his own walls and retreating both into himself and into the bathroom. He could _see_ it.

He’d seen it for years, had slammed up against Kurt Hummel’s impressive battlements trying to be let in until he was bruised and bloodied by them but still stranded outside. Watching Kurt keep his head up and his shoulders straight as he walked away, even though the pain beneath it was as bright as the sun to Blaine’s eyes, wasn’t new at all.

But what was new - what was a revelation, what was a relief - was the fact that for once Blaine didn’t need to follow him.

He didn’t need to try to fix it.

It was strange, in a way, to know Kurt was hurting and not need with all of his heart to fix it. It had never happened before, not from the very first moment he met Kurt on those Dalton stairs, and while a part of him felt off-balance in this new reality he mostly felt _proud_.

 _You can’t change other people, Blaine_ , his therapist had told him more than once when he’d cried out his devastation at Kurt not being able to love him the way Blaine had wanted him to, the way Kurt had promised he did. _You can only change your own reactions. You can only change yourself._

Kurt’s problems weren’t his problems anymore. Actually, they never had been; he knew that now. Kurt’s problems had been his own to solve. Their relationship issues had been theirs to share, yes, but Blaine couldn’t fix even those on his own, no matter how much he’d been driven to try.

Blaine breathed in slowly and was proud of himself for not wanting to jump out of his seat to follow the man he once would have followed anywhere: to McKinley, to New York, to the ends of the earth.

He didn’t want to hurt Kurt, but him not getting what he said he wanted now wasn’t Blaine’s problem to solve. Blaine didn’t have to be the one to chase after him anymore. He didn’t have to be the one to beg to talk. He didn’t have to be the one to bend and offer compromises. He didn’t have to be the one to put himself out there and be pushed away and rejected and hurt again and again and again until his heart was stripped bare and bleeding in pieces on the floor.

He could just sit there and let Kurt feel whatever he felt behind whatever walls he wanted to keep around himself.

It was a revelation.

It was freedom, finally. Freedom from everything that had been crushing the life from him for so long.

Blaine felt a tug deep in his heart to see Kurt growing less steady on his feet as he got further away across the room, not quite lost in the crowd, not to Blaine’s eyes, which could apparently still pick out the breadth of his shoulders and the sweep of his hair anywhere.

Some of that tug was true regret for the pain of someone he had cared about so much; it hadn’t been his goal, after all. He hadn’t really thought Kurt would be _hurt_ by the news that he was dating Dave. Surprised, certainly. Indignant, quite possibly. Self-centered and angry, potentially. But hurt? No, Blaine hadn’t expected him to be hurt, not when Kurt had been the one to break Blaine’s heart and their engagement and the plan for the whole long wonderful life together they were supposed to have had ahead of them.

But as much as some of Blaine’s reaction was regret, he was all too aware as he watched Kurt’s shoulders sink just a touch, just enough to show to someone who knew him that he was floundering beneath it all, that some of what he was feeling was satisfaction.

Part of Blaine wanted to drop his eyes, curl into himself and away from the bitterness and anger underlying that emotion, but he didn’t move. He didn’t look away from Kurt’s retreating form, just sat there, feeling tall and sure and good about it. Good about himself. He didn’t need to be ashamed of having feelings, any of them. He wasn’t going to.

 _You’re going to feel what you feel, Blaine_ , his therapist had told him. _There are no wrong emotions. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to express them._

He hadn’t set out to hurt Kurt, but he had to admit that it felt just a little bit good that Kurt _was_ hurting because of him, if only a fraction of how Blaine had been hurting for months upon months. And it felt even better, a fire deep in his veins, to know that he didn’t _want_ to fix it. Blaine didn’t want to apologize. He didn’t want to throw himself at Kurt’s feet and beg for forgiveness. He didn’t want to, and he didn’t have to, not anymore.

This meeting had been the greatest test of all. He had faced Kurt, faced not just his presence but an actual _declaration_ of Kurt wanting him back, and he hadn’t turned back into who he had been. He was still who he was _now_ : strong, steady, moving forward, moving on.

He had faced Kurt and stayed Blaine, this Blaine, the one who had risen from the ashes of his destroyed life into someone better.

After years of saying yes to Kurt and begging for a yes in return, it felt surprisingly good to be able to say no.

He breathed out slowly and rubbed his fingers against the sticky surface of the bar as Kurt finally vanished into the crowd. His chest loosened a little. He was sorry Kurt was hurting, but Blaine was even more relieved that _he_ was not.

“That went well,” Dave said with a brightness Blaine couldn’t feel, because Dave had never been able to read Kurt the way Blaine could. He probably saw the smile and heard the words and believed them, just like Kurt wanted them both to.

“It did,” Blaine said, because that was what adults did. They reacted to what they were offered. If Kurt wanted to tell them he wasn’t upset, then they would act like he wasn’t.

Blaine knew better, knew Kurt was hiding his feelings like he _always_ did. But what Blaine wanted most of all was to be the adult he’d thought he was before and actually was now. He wanted to focus on the good things: his job at Dalton, his relationship with Dave, his new future he had never expected he’d have to build but was anyway, bit by bit, all on his own.

Kurt could hide behind his shell of armor, let it crack only when he was alone, not need anyone else, take care of himself like he always wanted to, and that was fine. That was his choice.

It wasn’t Blaine’s problem now, he thought with a fierce rush of pride and determination. It couldn’t hurt him.

 _Kurt_ couldn’t hurt him, not anymore.

 _There’s nothing wrong with needing people,_ Blaine’s therapist had once assured him. _Humans need other humans. We all do. It’s part of our nature. Where things get hard is when the person we love isn’t willing or able to meet our needs. But that’s part of life, too. We try things out, we succeed or fail, we learn from it, and we move on to something that we hope will work better._

Blaine had never been good with failure, but he was proud to be able to say that he was learning to get better at moving beyond it.

Dave reached over and rubbed his back, his hand large and sure between Blaine’s shoulders, and Blaine turned away from the direction Kurt had walked to give his boyfriend a smile. It felt tight on his face, but he meant it, as much as he could when he was still thrumming with the effort of getting through a conversation he’d known could be difficult and had started so differently than he’d expected.

Dave smiled back, immediate and warm, even as his eyes went soft with concern. “Are you okay?”

Blaine didn’t know Dave as well as he did Kurt. There was no way the span of months of talking and dating could replace years of intense love. Blaine couldn’t read all of the subtleties of Dave’s eyes or the set of his jaw, but he didn’t need to, because Dave didn’t hide behind them. He didn’t need to try to figure out Dave’s puzzle, grasping for bits and pieces of what was real when they slipped out from behind the shell Kurt had kept between himself and everyone, even him; he just got to _learn_ about Dave, and Dave got to learn about him, little by little.

Dave didn’t see it as a burden to hear about Blaine’s feelings. When he asked if he was okay, Blaine knew it wasn’t because he was steeling himself for a hard conversation but was just because he wanted to know how Blaine was feeling. Because he _liked_ Blaine.

A familiar bitter bleakness rose in Blaine’s throat at the thought that the man who was supposed to be the love of his life, the man who had been his best friend and closest ally, the man who had promised him forever with words and deeds for years and years, the man who was supposed to be the safe place to catch him at the end of the day and who was supposed to want Blaine to catch him, too... that man had stopped liking him the more he knew him.

Familiarity really had bred contempt, at least in Kurt’s heart.

But Dave... Dave just liked him, his eyes not wavering on Blaine’s face.

Blaine didn’t look away from him as Dave rubbed his shoulder, never hesitant to reach out to Blaine, never hesitant to have him close. He didn’t look toward the bathroom where Kurt had retreated in the pain that he wanted to hide. He didn’t have to.

This wasn’t the life he’d thought he’d have, the one he’d been dreaming about since his sophomore year of high school when his heart had flung wide its doors and let Kurt fill every space inside, but it was his now. It was _his_ life, his to choose, his to make the way _he_ wanted it.

He didn’t have to take care of Kurt. He didn’t have to try to look for clues and offer unwelcome reassurances when Kurt came back holding his head high and pretending nothing was wrong, as Blaine knew he would. He could let Kurt pretend.

Blaine just had to take care of himself now, and he was doing it.

 _There’s nothing shameful in putting yourself first, Blaine_ , his therapist’s voice echoed in his head, shoring up the tender edges of his heart and reaffirming the new boundaries he had fought to learn to create. _You’re allowed to be happy. You’re allowed to make yourself happy._

He took a slow breath and leaned into Dave’s easy, always ready embrace. It wasn’t the same as Kurt’s in so many ways, neither as familiar nor as consuming, but that was okay. That was good.

“I’m okay,” Blaine said, looking up at Dave and feeling the truth of the words deep into his heart.

The world felt a little different around him, now that Kurt was in his presence again instead of just in his memory, like the ground had shifted or the song in his head had somehow unexpectedly changed keys, but that was fine. It didn’t change what Blaine wanted.

It didn’t, he was relieved to have proved, change who Blaine was.

Kurt had made his choices, and now Blaine was getting to make his own.

Blaine’s smile grew a little brighter, and he turned that much more toward his boyfriend and away from the past that he didn’t have to let hurt him anymore. “I’m just fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder: I am spoiler-free! Please do not spoil me for anything coming ahead in the season. Thanks!


End file.
